ELBARADEI : Everybody says nuclear terrorism is the No. 1 national and international security issue. But until they translate this grandstanding statement into dollars and cents, we will not be able to deal effectively with the danger we are facing. Our safeguards budget is $120 million a year. I’m sure that our little Vienna police department has a larger budget.

No. People confuse knowledge, industrial capacity and intention. The fact that Iran has knowledge, now, with regards to enrichment, there is no question about it. And we proved that through our extensive inspections. We haven’t seen, however, this knowledge translated into industrial capacity–that is, the ability to produce the material for nuclear weapons.

A lot of what you see about Iran right now is assessment of intentions. I saw recently a statement by [U.S. Director of National Intelligence John D.] Negroponte that was interesting in two ways: He says that Iran could have nuclear weapons between 2010 and 2015. So we are really talking about four to nine years, which in a way supports our assessment that they are not yet close to a nuclear weapon. And that is why we don’t see a clear and present danger that we have to address tomorrow. We have ample time to negotiate. But Negroponte also said that [the U.S.] believes that [the Iranians] have the intention to develop a nuclear weapon. And I’ve been saying that this agency cannot get into reading intentions.

I think we were very tough on North Korea in 1992 or 1993. We said they were in noncompliance. In 2003, we said they were in further noncompliance, but we were kicked out. Since 2003, North Korea has not been part of our fight. We lost jurisdiction. But I have been saying for the last two or three years that North Korea is the No. 1 security challenge to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I saw North Korea drop out of the [treaty] regime; I saw North Korea having plutonium; I saw North Korea feeling more and more isolated. I saw this coming.

There are two fundamental issues … One is that [the problem] is not really leader-specific. It is country-specific: a country feeling insecure. And if it sees that the people in the major leagues are relying on nuclear weapons, it will at the very least be tempted to do the same. Whether you have a monarchy or a democracy or a revolutionary regime, if a country feels insecure it will try to develop nuclear weapons.

The second myth is that nuclear weapons are okay in the hands of “the good guys” and not okay in the hands of “the bad guys.” Aside from being very subjective, this approach is not implementable, because right now whether you are good or bad, you have access to the technology. We need to have a system that’s not based on subjective considerations. There is only one solution: no new country should develop nuclear weapons, and no country should rely on nuclear weapons for its defense.